Author: Dave J.

Today’s mail brought me two articles to blog about. Both are not online, so no links:

Sales & Marketing Management wrote about blogs and yours-truly in its October issue. A concise one-page article in it’s Work/Life Balance section. “Decide if what you write about is for the general good, and not gossip or strategic secrets,” Jung suggests. Also quoted in the article is Steve Rubel of micropersuasion.com.

UPDATE: You can find the article about blogging & me here: Express Yourself (I like the Madonna title)

Now that my ego’s been stroked, here is some real content:

Circuits Assembly had a very interesting story in its October Industry News about how BTU International rescued itself from 14 negative quarters. Like a lot of manufacturers, they were caught in a recession and the shift to China. The article tells about the personnel changes and strategic efforts that brought them back. It looks like getting their arms around the international sales organization needed to support the now international client base was a big part of the successful turn-around. Well, that and good leadership, and developing manufacturing in China. Anyway, a good read, if you get CA.

Heard over a couple cubes: “Oh crap, an invite to a reverse auction!” Yes, the only thing worse than getting an official RFQ is getting invited to a reverse auction.

Unfamiliar with the reverse auction? It is an online auction where you bid the price you are willing to sell your product at. These auctions are powerful because they limit control of the sale to the buyer with price as the sole factor. That means the company buying has: decided your product is a commodity, cut out the end users, and will be unsympathetic to pleas of anything unrelated to price.

Here is an article from the other side of the table at Purchasing.com poorly titled as: Not just a cost-reduction tool:

“And while price will always be an issue, more buyers today use reverse auctions to determine best value. That is, they factor into the reverse auction equation the quality and delivery performance of suppliers. They will evaluate potential suppliers before including them in reverse auctions.

‘If they pass our quality audits, and, if they pass our financial audits, then we may allow them to participate in reverse auctions,’ says DeHart. And while existing suppliers sometimes balk at being part of a reverse auction, they often ‘come out looking good,’ he says.”

In other words, if you meet their minimum performance standards, you are included in the auction. I don’t see how that really adds any value to the reverse-auction model. But when someone else bids 25% less than you did, you want to call and ask to make sure the offer is ‘apples to apples’, but they don’t care–its a commodity.

Some time ago, I predicted a Google Calendar back in February. Looks like things might be moving foward, both in others spectulation and possibility. Here is one take on it:

A Google Calendar Theory: “Perhaps this is it. Google Calendar will be Mozilla’s Calendar Project, except it will be a Web-based hosted application running on Google’s servers and tied nicely into Gmail and Google Talk. Mozilla would really become for-profit then.”

I’ve had a couple salespeople call me twice recently…without their realizing it. If you are doing outbound calling, don’t you keep track of stuff like that? And another guy trying to sell me an expensive ad package without qualifying me (or he would learn he is wasting his time). More salespeople lost in the MAZE.

Semirelated: I want to praise the guy who I bought my car from via eBay. His first email to me promised “you will not be dissappointed.” He may not be a salesperson, but he understands the issue of buyer’s remorse I was facing buying a car unseen. The book Pardox of Choice made a big issue of buyer’s remorse as an impediment to sales–this guy gets it.

Oh, and yes, he delivered. I am not dissappointed with the car.

The Semicon trade show in San Francisco last July gets a harsh critique for not executing its new combined ‘front-end’ and ‘back-end’ shows into one site, as published in Chip Scale Review Magazine:

“And some of this year’s exhibitors, especially those who were exiled to the third floor of Moscone West-where you could fire off a cannon between rows without fear of hitting any visitors-will undoubtedly make their displeasure known to SEMI by not returning next year.”

While I was bold enough to call Semicon nitwits earlier this year for their bulky ‘free’ mailer, publisher Gene Selven doesn’t go quite so far. But he does point out all the shortcomings he saw himself, or heard from exhibitors (and we agree). In summation, there were two problems:

• Little effort to distinguish the two different types of show that were now combined
• And just as little effort to drive traffic to the different rooms/floors

My best experience with a two-floor show was at OFC in Anaheim where they put registration in the basement so that everyone had to filter through the basement at least once. At other shows, I’ve seen contests and refreshments offered at less traveled sections.

Certainly Semicon should have known that they were going to have these two problems. This, on top of the problem of moving the back-end show out of San Jose, where most of their show traffic comes from. According to Selven, a defection of exhibitors means they won’t have to worry about driving traffic to the third floor next year!

I found this approach interesting:

“There is one way to beat the Chinese threat to US manufacturing…

There is a way to beat the negative impact China has been having on manufacturing in the US. Don’t learn to speak Chinese. Instead, communicate more effectively about your product in English. That will increase the “perceived value” of your product. Notice, I didn’t say improve your product. I said, improve the prospect’s perception of the value of your product. In today’s marketplace there is only one way to effectively increase the “perceived value” of your product. The way is by getting a large number of news articles and feature stories published about your product.

…Check here so we can tell you all about our powerful marketing program and how it will help you beat the negative impact China is having on your business. Begin the process of defeating China’s negative influences on manufacturing in the US by taking care of #1. “

Well, it seemed like forever till I was able to be full-time marketing manager. And for my next dream, a marketing assistant. And that person’s first assignment will be to deal with promotional item sales reps (logo-encrusted tschotchkes). Geez, I’ve probably had half a dozen contact me in the last week…including the relentless guy from Myron Manufacturing.

“No, don’t need any pens right now.” ‘No, no calendars.” “Don’t need anything until next year.” “Call me next year.”

The thing is, putting them off is the easiest strategy. If you give any objections, then they think you are live prospect and will try to engage you. Most are just cold calling and never follow-up. They are caught in the MAZE (maximum activity, zero effect) per Tim McMahon’s recent podcast.

I found a couple more posts to share. These intersect somehow:

What makes an idea viral? by Seth Godin
Seth says that ideas are only shared if they are understood:

“No one “gets” an idea unless:
a. the first impression demands further investigation
b. they already understand the foundation ideas necessary to get the new idea
c. they trust or respect the sender enough to invest the time”

Myths and facts from Reveries
Tim at Reveries quotes Dr. Skurnik:

“Unless people have some countervailing context or information to grab hold of, they tend to regard information that seems familiar as true.”
“It’s not enough to ensure that people get good information from credible sources … You also have to make sure that they’ll be able to recall whether it’s true or false later on.”

All of which explains why I must have got the AOL/Intel merger/Bill Gates is going to send you money chain email today. Seriously though, the lesson I am getting is that a marketing message has to fit the knowledge, preconceived notions, or prejudices that the prospect has, or they aren’t going to get anything out of it.

To what Seth said, until the message fits client in the way he described, he’s not going to ready to go to his boss and tell him why your product is better. And Dr. Skurnik may predict that his boss may cling to familiar facts that he regards as true and reject the proposal anyway. Ouch!

It has been two weeks since my last post. Maybe a record for a non vacation period in the 3+ years of this blog. With our annual sales meeting and congested internet service here at work, its been tough to get posts up. Hope you haven’t been wasting away waiting 😉

To get things going again, here are three links I had lingering in my Bloglines account.

1. Father Flanders points to a great tool for testing and creating CSS style sheets called TypeTester. (Okay, Mike, I know you blogged it, too.)
2. Lab Reports riffs on being genuine and honest in your marketing and PR. This post may show its age by talking about Katrina, but ends praising the Menard’s Guy approach (those in the Midwest know who he is talking about).
3. Jeremey Porter provides a good summation from the B2B Conference on email deliverability. I’m not doing direct-email, but I found it informative to know what hurdles I should be prepared to jump.

Its fun to go to the mall and wonder around…unless you want shop for shoes. Now you have to figure out where all the shoe stores are, which can sometimes be frustrating, even with a mall map.

And so it goes with trade shows. Despite show guides that contain our 50 carefully crafted words about our companies, most attendees are happy to wander around, as actually trying to figure out which booths to go to beforehand is hard.

I just got a email from the Semicon Show saying they would use ‘matchmaking’ software to recommend booths for attendees to visit. And they would also reverse the process and give vendors targeted attendees lists.

The company that makes this software has a very sparse website, but it does provide a good summary of what they do and the value it offers:

BDMetrics: “We grow attendance at conferences and events by identifying the unique people, companies, products, and knowledge that each individual registrant needs to see. We help exhibitors make money by identifying attendees who are the best leads and marketing to them. And we grow revenues for show owners by boosting attendance, increasing exhibit sales, and adding new revenue streams. BDMetrics is radically increasing the business value that attendees and exhibitors get from attending events. “

In other words, if a potential attendee can easily show his boss all the companies relevant to his job, he is more likely to get approved to go. And he will also be more likely to visit your booth when he gets there. I’m looking forward to seeing it in action.